Jack Brooks sets a British record as his racing adventures continue around the world

Jack Brooks shares his latest race reports as he becomes the first person from the UK to complete a marathon in all 50 US States plus DC, and all 13 Provinces and Territories in Canada...

May 2018 to July 2018

Dobbs Weir Double Trail Marathon: 12th and 13th May 2018

Both marathons started from Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, but the Saturday route was completely different to the Sunday route.

At the finish of the Dobbs Weir Double Trial Marathon

On the first day, a large section of the course followed waterways and established footpaths and the next day we spent more time going through fields and along country lanes. I really enjoyed both days and am certainly considering doing this again next year as it was such a friendly and welcoming event.

My times were 5:16 on the Saturday and 5:54 on the Sunday.

Aruba Marathon: 3rd June 2018

I flew to Aruba from Heathrow via Newark and met up with my friends from North Carolina at Aruba Airport. We then returned to the airport in the evening to pick up John and Charlene Lum Young who'd flown in from Trinidad and Tobago via Miami. 

Hoping to avoid any snakes running in the dark in Aruba

We had a fairly quiet day on the Saturday collecting our race numbers from the race HQ hotel, visiting the Butterfly Farm and then eating. 

The marathon started at 3.30am on the Sunday (at which time there were already very strong winds and the temperature was 27 degrees) so we left our hotel around 2.40am and headed for the start. This being the inaugural Aruba Marathon there were plenty of people I knew milling around the start line including Dave and Linda Major and Dan Micola from the UK and Brent Weigner, who I’d stayed with when I ran the Wyoming Marathon. 

The course comprised two laps and for the first eight miles or so there was reasonable street lighting. However, after that there was a stretch of around four miles without any. For the most part the road surface on the unlit area was pretty good, but it became more questionable on the half mile uphill stretch to the turnaround point by the California lighthouse where there were a few trip hazards. 

It is probably as well that it was dark the first time around as on the second lap there was a dead snake in the middle of the road, which was around 3ft long (a constrictor apparently). I definitely wouldn’t have welcomed an encounter with any of its living relatives!

By the time I set off on the second lap it was starting to get light and the temperature was climbing. The heat was certainly affecting me as I ran the second lap around 37 minutes slower than the first lap so I was pleased with my time of 4:52:53. I’d been anticipating for most of the second half that my finish time could be over 5 hours. The First Aid lady at the finish insisted on dousing me with cold water to cool me down.

Monday came around too quickly and the only consolation on the flight back was that United Airlines bumped me up from Economy Plus to Business Class for the flight to Newark.

Runner’s World Runstock 50K Challenge: 9th June 2018

I entered this event out of curiosity and ended up thoroughly enjoying it. The course was an off-road, undulating one and comprised 5K laps. The main start was at 10am, but the format was such that anyone (including young children) could start when they wanted and complete as many laps as they wished before the event closed at 6pm. 

Runstock was a great event for families

For those not taking the event too seriously there were all sorts of obstacle options around the route (water slides, an obstacle challenge, inflatable obstacles, a climbing wall etc) and inevitably the course was most crowded on the first lap. This did mean that most of the nettles and high grass were flattened by the time I reached them. 

There was a special baggage area just by the start/finish area for all those taking part in the 50K challenge and we all were issued with yellow running vests so we knew who we were competing against. 

One of the best features of the event was seeing how many families and kids were taking part and seeing how much they were all enjoying themselves. 

Whilst the marathon distance wasn’t marked I reckoned that I went through 26.2 miles in around 5:03:00. My chip time for 50K was 6:16:39 and I was 2nd in the male over 55 age group. Given the difficulty of the course I thought that was okay.

Midnight Sun Marathon, Tromso, Norway: 16th June 2018

While I was at a reunion drink with friends who I worked with in the GLC (Greater London Council) in 1980 one of them, Jon Elliott, suggested that we should both run the Midnight Sun Marathon. 

About 16 months later I found myself flying into Tromso to meet up with Jon and his wife, Carol. It is certainly strange to be in a place where it never gets dark and to be in bright sunshine at 11.30pm. 

With friends at the Midnight Sun Marathon

Unfortunately the weather didn’t hold for the day of the marathon. In the morning the wind was 49 miles per hour, but by the 8.30pm race start it had dropped to what was still a very fierce 21 miles per hour. There was very little shelter and runners were particularly exposed to the elements when running over the bridge (twice) and in the second half where we ran out and back alongside the sea. 

I was wearing two T-shirts, gloves and a buff and was still cold at times. Having said that I finished in 4:27:46, which was well within my expectations. Jon, who has run under 3 hours in the past, was injured and dropped down to do the half, but was happy with his run.

There were plenty of others from the UK there. On the first day we met up with a Greek friend of mine called Costas and on the Friday Yin-Hai Cheung and her brother, Fu called in to our hotel to make contact. 

We managed to fit a lot into our 3.5 days there and really enjoyed the Polaria Museum, the Polar Museum and the Science Centre and Planetarium. Needless to say we found everything expensive. For example beer cost anything between £7 and £12 per pint. Nevertheless we managed some decent post-race celebrations on the Sunday before catching an early flight home on the Monday morning.

Herts Hobble Trail Marathon: 24th June 2018

This year the event started from Buntingford and the route comprised a pleasant circuit passing through the picturesque Hertfordshire villages of Aspenden, Wood End, Ardeley, Walkern, Hall’s Green, Weston, Redhill and Throcking. 

Joined by fellow Striders at the Herts Hobble

I ran round with Adam Mellor and Paul Barton (a friend from the 100 Marathon Club). 

The temperature for most of the race was around 26 degrees so we settled on a very steady pace and took on plenty of liquid and food at each checkpoint. This was definitely a day for admiring the British countryside in pleasant company. We finished in 6:26:00.

Ladybower Trail Marathon: 30th June 2018

I had done training runs around Ladybower Reservoir many years ago so I was intrigued enough to enter this race when it came to my notice. The description said “in the idyllic beauty spot of the Peak District National Park, the course is surrounded by the elevated fells set within the Derwent Valley”.

Hot and hilly conditions at the Ladybower Trail Marathon

However, they warned that they had thrown in a serious climb, which took us high up onto the Derwent Edges. The ascent wasn’t easy and the descent was downright treacherous. It was another very hot day, but fortunately there was a slight breeze, which helped no end. I finished in 5:13:07 and thoroughly enjoyed the route as well as meeting up with a number of friends from “up North” who I don’t see often enough. 

A statistic that is probably only of interest to me is that this was the 150th different UK marathon that I’ve run.

North Downs Way Trail Marathon: 8th July 2018

This was a two lap out and back marathon following tough trails between Reigate Hill and Boxhill. There were some precipitous climbs and descents and plenty of roots and rocks to contend with. I managed the first 20 miles without falling, but when my foot did catch a root I went down hard. 

Another hot day running the North Downs Way

There was plenty of blood as well as bruised ribs for me, but the medics at the finish confirmed that plenty of others had also taken a tumble so I was in good company. 

It was a beautiful course and the route was well signposted, but it was brutally hot all day and the multiple trip hazards to contend with made this a very tough event. 

The cut-off time at half way was 3:30 and plenty of runners didn’t make that. I was 65th out of 83 finishers and my time was 6:24:49.

Northwest Passage Trail Marathon, Somerset Island, Nunavut, Canada: 22nd July 2018

To reach the location of this marathon is an adventure in itself. I stayed at Arctic Watch Lodge where there is a gravel airstrip constructed on a river bed with a bulldozer that was driven across the sea when the sea was frozen over. Pilots have to land by sight and our flight out was delayed a day because of poor visibility. 

Having an adventure at the remote Northwest Passage Trail Marathon

I stayed in a small hut adjacent to the Lodge, which had heating of sorts a couple of hours each day. I was fine with that as I knew conditions would be fairly spartan this far North. 

As some runners had cancelled and the Lodge can only accommodate around 25 people there were only four of us running the marathon. We were driven to the start on ATVs and ominously began the race by a pile of bones. 

The first 16ks alongside the Northwest Passage were the hardest as we were running directly into a headwind and also into driving snow and sleet. I was wearing a hat, four top layers, running tights and over-trousers, thick windproof gloves, two pairs of socks and trail shoes and I still couldn’t get warm. 

The aim was for each runner to be followed by an ATV manned by someone with a gun as musk ox, polar bears and wolves are sometimes found in these locations. 

My home at Arctic Watch

Unfortunately, Vicky, my own personal girl with a gun, was on an ATV which broke down at 16k and I was then on my own apart from seeing ATVs briefly at around 30k and 36k. I surmised that the most likely place to see bears was in the first 16k as there was a large ice ridge in the sea to our right as well as ice floes and small icebergs so at least Vicky got me past the worst danger area. 

The route was marked by small red flags, but in some places the wind had been so strong that it had literally shredded the flag material and there was an element of guesswork involved in finding the correct route. I’d often head in the wrong direction for a few yards before spotting a flag and then have to adjust my route or backtrack, especially after I lost Vicky. 

For almost the whole route the running surface comprised loose rocks and shale or soft mud and I gave up counting how many streams I’d waded through after about 40. I was extremely relieved to cross the finish line in a time of 6:43:00. 

This race was the last one I needed to complete in order to be the first person from the UK to complete a marathon in all 50 US States plus DC and all 13 Provinces and Territories in Canada.

There were around 300 Beluga whales in the bay by the Lodge while we were there and mothers and calves in particular would regularly come within 30 feet of the shore as they played in the water. I have never seen so many whales that close to me. The guides at the Lodge also organised some great hikes, although at all times we had to be accompanied by someone with a gun.

Leaving the Lodge was an adventure in itself. On the day we were meant to leave visibility was too poor all day for a plane to land. The day after that the plane took off from Yellowknife and actually flew over us as we stood by the runway, but it couldn’t land because the pilot couldn’t see the airstrip and so it headed back on the 3.5 hour return trip to Yellowknife. 

The next day visibility was still not brilliant and so they decided to fly us 100 miles North to an airstrip in Resolute in two shifts using a twin otter plane (which could fly lower so the pilot could see the runway). The plane from Yellowknife took off in the morning, but had to turn back because of mechanical difficulties. It eventually reached us in Resolute, where they had proper airstrip facilities, late on the Thursday evening and we finally made it back to Yellowknife at 3am on Friday 27th July.